Epilogue - Tone #2
They unmake you first. Strip you down to nothing. And if they are true, if they survive the fire and the wreckage and the ugly things people do to each other, they build something in the ashes so beautiful that you almost forget what it cost to get there.
Think I tied up every loose end? Think every secret has been buried, every debt paid, every monster dragged into the light?
Not quite.
Because there’s still one question I haven’t answered.
Whatever happened to the Cavalho black sheep, DeMarco Cavalho?
If you think I’m finished dragging you into dangerous rooms with beautiful, brutal men, you clearly haven’t learned your lesson yet.
A brand-new series is waiting, filled with new faces, old sins, and men who will go to war for their women.
Come meet the next family.
They’ve been expecting you.
UNHOLY SAINT Read it here:
UNHOLY SAINT
Chapter 1: Demitri
I unlocked the side door before the sun had fully lifted over the hills, stepped inside, and stood for a moment in the thin blue gloom. The stones held the night’s cold. It pressed through the soles of my shoes and climbed into my bones, familiar as penance.
Santa Aurelia was not one of Rome’s grand churches that attracted tourists.
It sat on the edge of a small town forty minutes beyond the city, tucked in a clearing at the edge of a thick forest. The bell tower leaned a little.
The roof leaked when the rain came hard.
The painted saints along the walls were peeling at the edges, their gold halos flaking into dull brown scars.
Still, people came.
They came with their sins, their grief, their aching knees, their sick husbands, their ruined sons, their dead daughters, their shame. They came because the world had turned chaotic, and they needed somewhere to set down the pieces of themselves that had fractured and failed them.
I gave them what I could. A blessing. A listening ear. A quiet voice. Sometimes, that was enough. Most days, I knew it wasn’t.
I crossed myself at the altar, bowed my head, and began the morning routine. I always followed the same motions. The same order.
Later, I moved through the church in silence, my black cassock brushing against the stone floor. The sound was soft, almost soothing. That’s what I liked most about this place.
The saints watched me from the walls with faded eyes. Saint Michael with his sword. Saint Lucy with her plate. Saint Sebastian pierced through with arrows, beautiful and suffering and absurdly calm throughout the whole ordeal.
I paused before Sebastian.
His paint had cracked across the chest, splitting him open.
I looked at the wound, studied it longer than I should have. Then I turned away.
There were three exits from the nave. The main doors. The side door beside the sacristy. The small service passage behind the altar that led to the courtyard.
I knew how long it took to reach each one.
I knew which pews were loose, which candlesticks were heavy enough to do some real damage, and which windows could be broken without slicing a wrist open.
These were not thoughts a priest should have. I had them anyway.
At nine, I heard confession.
The first was Signora Bianchi, who confessed to resenting her daughter-in-law because the woman cooked pasta like an English tourist and dressed her grandson to look like a banker.
I absolved her. But it took all of my restraint.
The second was a man who had been unfaithful to his wife.
He cried. I listened.
His remorse was soft, selfish, heavy with the fear of being found out. Men often mistook consequences for conscience. I had learned to hear the difference.
When he finished, he asked if God would forgive him.
“Yes, my son,” I told him.
His breath broke with relief.
I did not add that forgiveness was not escape, but a chance to do better. Be better.
The third confession was a boy from the village who had stolen money from his uncle’s shop.
Then came a woman who hated her dying mother and hated herself more for it.
The last was a man who sat behind the screen and said nothing for nearly seven minutes.
I waited.
Silence had weight. Most people tried to fill it. The ones who didn’t were either broken or dangerous. Sometimes both.
Finally, he said, “I have thought about killing someone.”
My fingers rested on my knee, suddenly clammy.
I was unable to move.
“Thinking is not the same as doing,” I reminded him.
“It felt good.”
There it was. That small, ugly confession beneath the confession. The truth people feared most was rarely the sin itself. It was the pleasure they took in sinning.
“What did?” I asked.
“Imagining it.” His breath scraped through the screen. “His face. My hands. The quiet after.”
I closed my eyes. For a moment, I was somewhere else.
A different room. A different man. My mouth trying to form a prayer. My hand around a throat. The quiet after.
I opened my eyes.
“You came here before you did it,” I said. “That matters.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.”
“Will God stop me?”
“No.”
He inhaled sharply.
I leaned closer to the screen, lowering my voice. “God gives you a conscience. He does not chain your hands. If you want chains, go to the police. If you want absolution, start with the truth. Who is he?”
There was a pause.
“My brother.”
I listened until the whole rotten story spilled out. It was one of debt and inheritance. The story of their father’s land. A lifetime of small cruelties stacked into one murderous thought.
When he left, I felt he was pale and shaking. But he would have left lighter, and perhaps less likely to place his hands around his brother’s neck before supper.
I remained in the confessional after he had gone.
The wood smelled old. Warm. Stained with sweat and whispered shame.
I pressed my thumb against the inside of my wrist and counted my pulse until it slowed.
One.
Two.
Three.
Peace was a thing I built by hand every day.
Some men were born gentle. I had carved gentleness into myself with a very blunt knife.
At noon, I took my small black car along the narrow roads outside town, past olive groves and low stone walls, to the home of Pietro Mancini. He had been dying for six months with the stubbornness of a man who disliked leaving work unfinished.
His daughter met me at the door, red-eyed and exhausted.
“He’s in a mood,” she warned.
“The important thing is that he is alive.”
She smiled, but it died quickly.
Pietro’s skin had gone thin, but his eyes were still bright and mean enough to start a fight with death.
“Father,” he rasped. “You’re back again.”
“You keep refusing heaven. I’ve come to check whether you have changed your mind.”
He made a sound that might have been laughter. “Heaven has too many rules.”
I sat beside him and took his hand.
He did not want prayers at first. He wanted gossip. He wanted to complain about the doctor, the mayor, his neighbour’s dog. I let him. The dying often needed to return to ordinary things before they could face extraordinary ones.
After a while, his grip tightened.
“Will it hurt?” he asked.
I looked at him. He stared at the ceiling, jaw clenched.
“The end?” I asked.
He nodded once.
“I don’t know.”
His eyes shifted to mine. “That’s a terrible answer coming from a priest.”
“I can offer you only honesty.”
“I am afraid.”
“I know.”
“I was not a good man.”
“Few are.”
“You?”
The question sat between us.
I should have had an answer ready. Instead, I looked at the crucifix above his bed and said, “No. I was not a good man.”
Pietro watched me for a long moment. Then he turned his hand and gripped mine properly.
“Pray for me, anyway,” he whispered.
So I did.
When I left, his daughter was crying quietly in the kitchen. I blessed her. She clung to my hand for a little too long. People often did that; they mistook the collar for strength and borrowed from it. I let them. God knew I had borrowed from it long enough.
Clouds had gathered over the town, turning the sky the colour of bruised pewter. I returned to the church, parked beside the courtyard, and sat in the car for a moment before going in.
It was an old habit I had never quite shaken.
When I entered the church, the nave was empty.
Sometimes I preferred it that way. The dying light slid through stained glass in red and blue fragments, spilling over the pews like broken jewels. Dust drifted through the air. The saints watched from their cracked frames. Somewhere in the roof, a bird scratched and settled.
I moved through evening duties slowly, putting order back where the day had worn it thin.
The altar. The candles. The collection box. The confession schedule.
I wrote notes for Sunday’s homily and crossed half of them out. Forgiveness. Mercy. The prodigal son. All worthy topics. All dangerous in the hands of a hypocrite.
Outside, rain began to fall.
The town had gone quiet as darkness fell. I locked the front doors but left the side entrance unlatched for another hour, as I always did. People in desperate need rarely arrived during waking hours.
I prepared a simple supper in the small rectory kitchen: bread, olives, cheese, an apple. I ate standing at the counter.
Afterward, I washed the plate, dried it, and placed it back in the cupboard exactly where it belonged.
Order. Repetition. Peace by design.
The rain had strengthened, drumming against the roof and streaking the tall windows until the saints beyond the glass looked like they were weeping. The church was colder now. Shadows gathered in the corners. The red sanctuary lamp flickered like a tired heart.
I walked to the altar.
One candle had burned low, its wax spilled over the brass holder in pale rivulets. I trimmed the wick, replaced it, and lit a fresh flame. Then another. And another. Small lights blooming against the dark.
I had always liked this part of the night. The town asleep. The hollow church. My hands busy with something harmless. Flame. Wick. Wax.
I bent to light the final candle.
Behind me, the side entrance crashed open. The sound split the church apart.
I turned.
A woman stumbled through the rain and into the nave.